


The Great Burning

by Adge



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adge/pseuds/Adge
Summary: Iceland and the Return of the Gods





	The Great Burning

Three things triggered it, three things that chanced to come together - or was it indeed the will of the true gods, knowing their time had come again?  
First, a young man named Árni - Árni Reynisson. Yes, the rash sickness was a terrible thing, he knew that - everyone knew that - but... this?  
When the sickness broke out he was a radar operator on board the customs vessel Thor, looking for smugglers to arrest or boats in distress to help. Not looking for boats filled with innocent people, even children, to blow out of the water with gunfire. The heavy ship's cannon first, then rifles to finish off any survivors.  
Why? Couldn't they be quarantined, or something? Do we really have no alternative, that we must slaughter children when they'd only come to ask for help?  
Officially, of course, it never happened; the coastguards 'turned back' the boats; and the rash sickness being what it was, nobody got round to asking questions. But cynical expediency had only grown so far, and Árni was allowed to resign on his promise to keep his mouth shut. He promised, in good faith.  
But a couple of weeks later he found himself at a formal dinner, seated between a sea-captain and a priest. All his nightmares flooded back; he had to say something - not everything, he did try to keep his promise, but enough for the priest to guess the rest. The priest was shocked and only half-believing such a terrible thing, but the first chance he had, he told his bishop. Who was also shocked, and also only half-believing, but noted in his diary to raise it in such Government circles as he had access to at the very first opportunity.  
It seems strange to us, but apparently there was no need in those days for ordinary employees in a bishop's office to belong to his church, or even his religion. It was therefore just unfortunate that the temp dealing with his diary while his usual secretary had a baby was one of Gunnhild Thorsdóttir's followers. He took the diary entry to Gunnhild, and Gunnhild recognised pure gold.  
Yes, Gunnhild Thorsdóttir was the second thing needed for the trigger.  
Gunnhild Thorsdóttir - not her real name, but Maria Jónsdóttir just didn't have the right ring - was a modern day pagan. Not a 'Neo-pagan' - or 'pink fluffybunny pagan' as she called them, usually abbreviated to 'pfb' when she wasn't calling them 'wet-knickered treehuggers' or such, nor a pantheistic - or 'handwaving braindead idiot' as she preferred - 'True Icelander'. No. Gunnhild had done her homework. As far as was humanly possible this far after, hers was the real thing, not a 'wishy-washy modern fake invented by the lazy, supported by the ignorant, and encouraged by the cosy'; and according to her the only proper religion for an Icelander.  
And she preached it, and very effectively too. Even before the rash sickness she'd got nearly a hundred followers, and the rash sickness itself was of course an instant boost to her. It also increased police interest in her, though. She'd often sailed close to the wind on racism and homophobia - especially lesbians and lesbianism - and very close indeed on antisemitism, especially in relating the Holocaust to the pseudo-paganism of some circles of Nazism, to the point where several of her followers had definitely sailed into court appearances.  
So the bishop's diary entry was, for her, pure gold. She went public immediately, exhibiting it as proof that the Church and the Government were collaborating in the slaughter of innocent children, and of course however much the Church and the Government pointed out that it proved the exact opposite, the more she was believed.  
Even so it would probably have fizzled out in the end: the rash sickness was so hideous that probably most people would have come to understand and, if not actually to approve, at least to condone the killings. Except that the third trigger came only a week later. The sinking of the Freya.  
Several hundred Icelanders were caught unaware by the slamming shut of Iceland's borders, and left stuck in various foreign lands. At first they could stay in contact with their families and Government by radio, but the Government simply refused to listen to their pleas to be allowed back. In the end fifty-three Icelanders trapped in Bergen chartered a small ship and set off for Reykjavik. They didn't tell the Government; they didn't know the passcodes; they did know the waters. They got quite a bit closer than most before a customs vessel found them. Glumly they raised a white flag and expected arrest. Instead, they were fired on, and went down with all hands, including the man who had been transmitting on the boat's wireless as the ship blew up.  
His family sent copies of his broadcast to the papers, and of course to Gunnhild.  
Now it wasn't just the Government killing foreigners; now it was the Government killing Icelanders, in cold blood. Now no one was safe.  
Public meetings became demonstrations became riots. Riots became bloody street battles. And behind them, Gunnhild was pouring oil on the flames, demanding a return to the true Icelandic religion, demanding the destruction of everything associated with the post-pagan, pre-rash world - not only churches, but Government buildings, civic and public buildings of all kinds, of schools and colleges and universities, of all computers, wirelesses, televisions, phones, gadgets... and books.  
She demanded the complete destruction of all books. Even those in private houses. Her followers would bring out their own books and their families' books for burning, but that wasn't enough for Gunnhild. Soon her troops were going house to house seeking hidden caches of books (and computers and tablets and laptops and anything else that could store information) and bringing them out in armfuls to throw on the fires. At the end, it seemed she was about to demand the burning of the scholars too. Many fled, chartering boats that never returned.  
It couldn't last, of course, but the tale of its ending has never been sorted out. All we know for certain is: Gunnhild vanished. She was definitely standing close to one of the fires - in Reykjavik itself - watching the books burn while haranguing the crowd as she usually did; some in the crowd claimed that they saw a white globe grow from nowhere, engulf her, and vanish with her; those next to her spoke of tall white figures who apparently spoke to her and led her away - but these were her closest followers; could they really be believed?  
Whatever happened to Gunnhild, she had changed Iceland for ever. The books were burnt. The Government was dead. The schools and universities were dead. The churches were dead. Now people turned to all that was left: the old gods. Wiser and more moderate thinkers set out to build a new paganism, and strangely, it worked. Though it was three quarters guesswork, it came together, logically and seamlessly. And just at this time we began to hear - only rumours at first, urban legends people said, until the dreamers came forward in person. Though they'd vanished ages ago, suddenly mages were real again.  
Yes, the old gods were back.  
Now books were hunted out for recovery, not destruction, and it turned out there were more than had been feared, especially in the countryside. Even Gunnhild's memory was pressed into service: she had been chosen by the gods to reestablish their worship so that the rash disease could be fought, but pride had thrown her off the true path, so the gods had intervened and taken her out - to Valhalla? Maybe.  
But that is the tale of Gunnhild Thorsdóttir and the Great Burning, and of how the old gods came to be worshipped once again in Iceland, as far as it is known. May the gods bless this work to their glory.


End file.
